I should be doing my homework...and I was...but then I got sidetracked. For my journalistic writing course we are keeping up with the news every day and then writing up a report about why the particular article or broadcast was newsworthy. So I quick went to MSNBC.com and clicked on a headline "Ethiopia's Dirty War" (http://www.newsweek.com/id/98033). Being the lazy person I am at this moment, I briefly skimmed the article thought, "wow that's so sad." and then copy and pasted it into a document so I could read it later and then respond to it. I didn't want to spend more than a couple of minutes on it.
Then I went to check my hotmail inbox, and a headline on the bottom flashed "Heath Ledger Dead at 28". I said outloud "What!" My roommate asked me what was wrong and I said, "well, nothing..I mean, well something. It's just, a famous actor was found dead. And I was just surprised." So I read the article. http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=293954>1=7701&silentchk=1&Thoroughly.
And then I clicked on another link titled "Stars React to Ledger's Death" and then to the NBC Nightly News Report about it. For some reason I wanted to know how and why and when. This probably lasted 10 minutes or so.
Then I thought to myself... "Interesting...it could be anybody. But because it's a celebrity I'm interested and the Media has tons of information about it. I didn't even have to search"
Then, ten minutes later (in between checking Facebook and my other e-mail AGAIN) I accidentally clicked on the tab which still had the article about Ethiopia's War and I sat there staring at the photo of an emaciated woman and child. I had looked a this just minutes before and I had barely cared. I hadn't even read the whole thing. I still haven't read the whole thing. Why wasn't I shocked by this? Why didn't I exclaim "What!?" to make my roommate ask me what was wrong? And now I'm disgusted by myself.
Tonight at the first night of our Bible Study on the Sermon on the Mount, our leader said, "I hope this study of Matthew changes your life. Because it's all well and good to read the Bible for knowledge, to equip you to converse eloquently and know what's what...but that's not enough. There should be an obvious change in your life."
What is The Sermon on the Mount all about, anyway? It's about the Kingdom of God. And bringing it to Earth. The Kingdom of God is full of the "least of these", the untouchables, the forgotten, the poor and the meek, the mourning and the persecuted... the famous, the rich, the privileged are not mentioned. In fact, it is these people who received the harshest rebuke. (What does that mean for me, a middle class American?)
Is there an obvious change in my life? Am I mourning for the right things? I don't want to make the life of Heath Ledger worthless...for he was a precious child in God's sight just as is the little girl starving in Africa...but I should be as disturbed by the headline about Ethiopia as I was about Heath Ledger. (Not to mention how I should have wept for the people I saw picking through dumpsters today...and the man I passed with a bag over one foot instead of a shoe).
It's a good thing Jesus cares about non-celebrities too...
My prayer is that we would strive to be like Jesus...to hurt when ALL his children hurt, not just when his famous children hurt.
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2 comments:
That's so true. I've thought about that before, too. With all the media we become so desensitized to true tragedy... and a lot of the time we're more interested in celebrities than actual news.
I hope everything's going great still!
Amen! You could not be more on track than this! We need to start a revolution of this kind of thinking! I feel as though you and I could have a discussion on this topic for a long time! Why are we, as a people, not shocked and appalled at these everyday, too tragic stories?
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